At the Google I/O conference in May 2016, a voice assistant was presented for the Pixel and Pixel XL smartphones. It can be considered as an upgrade or extension for Google Now. It was developed to become a full-fledged voice assistant for the operating room in addition to the usual “Okay, Google”.
Those who have been using Android devices for some time are familiar with Google Now. It's a smart learning assistant that knows where you work, what sports team you support, and what interests you in general. With its help, you can receive current news on areas of interest and create personal routes. The data is displayed in the form of cards and reminders on your device.
Google Assistant Compatible Devices
Google Assistant was released to work with Google Pixel smartphones and the Google Home device. The exclusive to Google Phones turned out to be temporary, but the assistant was also planned to be released for Android Wear 2.0, Android TV and some cars. Plus, you can use the assistant using Google Allo.
Today you can also install Google Assistant on any smartphone, which already has Android 7.0 Nougat installed. The voice assistant is also relevant for those who use the previous version of the operating system, Android 6.0 Marshmallow. Among these smartphones:
- S7 (+ S7 Edge);
- HTC 10 and U Ultra;
- G5, LG V20;
- Xperia XZ;
- and many others.
Google has not compiled a list of devices that support working with this voice assistant. And this means that the link goes directly to Google services and certain versions of the Android operating system. And if you also use other devices on which the assistant can be installed, you can switch between them without any problems, because the data is saved not only for a separate device.
How Google Assistant works
Google Assistant becomes not just an assistant for the user, but a personal Google. You can ask him anything you want by voice and get the necessary information. But it is worth considering that There is no full-fledged Google Assistant in Russian yet. Therefore, you will have to speak with him mainly in English, German or any other language into which he has already been translated.
Current assistant features:
- providing information to Google, checking the weather or flight status;
- event reminders;
- programming devices included in your personal Internet of Things;
- secure data transfer and personal control of the information you exchange;
- Compatible with many popular services such as Netflix, Uber, Hue and others.
Google Assistant adapts to the system it works with. The personal assistant on Android Wear 2.0 and the same artificial intelligence on your smartphone will be slightly different in functionality and management. The differences are associated with different capabilities of the systems and their focus. The general essence of the personal assistant does not change.
No problem. There is one way how this can be done. Although it only works on some devices right now. In general, the transfer of the assistant to other Android devices with versions of Marshmallow and higher is already in the process. In the meantime, you can use the Google Allo application. There are rumors that Google is still finalizing the interface. However, OnePlus recently announced that Google Assistant will be compatible with OnePlus 3 and OnePlus 3T smartphones.
What is Google Assistant?
Through the Allo app, you can use Google Assistant to, say, get directions or find the right restaurants. To do this, you just need to call up your Google account and use the services of the assistant. You can also use Google Assistant to create reminders, check flight schedules, and much more.
Other options for getting an assistant
Previously, on non-Google Pixel smartphones running Android 5.0 Lollipop and above, you could get Google Assistant using the Google App Alpha APK installation file. However, now this method is irrelevant, so there is no point in even trying. We hope that Google will soon expand the list of smartphones that support Assistant. In the meantime, we advise our readers to pay attention to Google Allo.
What do you think about Google Assistant? Have you tried installing it on your device? Share your experience in the comments.
Android Police has obtained a test alpha version of the Google application. It is notable for the fact that it contains many innovations and activates Google Assistant on different smartphone models. Google Assistant is Google's digital assistant, which is currently officially only available on the Google Pixel and Pixel XL smartphones, the Google Home speaker, and partially in the Google Allo application.
Google Assistant
The new Google app contains the code responsible for activating Google Assistant. To launch the assistant, you need to hold down the Android home page button for a couple of seconds. On some smartphones, after installing a new Google app, this will still launch the Google Now app or Now on Tap, but some devices will activate Google Assistant. The screen says “Android just got better” and “Try Google Assistant.” By what principle the Google application chooses whether to launch Google Assistant on a smartphone or not is unclear - perhaps the assistant is only available in some countries and on selected device models.
The user can communicate with Google Assistant in natural language. This function allows you to find information on the Internet, create reminders and perform various actions (call a taxi, make a reservation at a restaurant, etc.) In its capabilities, it is close to Siri from Apple and Cortana from Microsoft. Google Assistant works in different languages, including Russian, although with great limitations.
Other innovations
- Offline search. If you are trying to search for information on the Internet, but the connection is disconnected, the application will remember what you were looking for and display the search results as soon as the network connection is available. Some users of the Google application have already gained access to this function earlier, but now it has become even more convenient - when access to the network appears, the device downloads the first few pages with search results so that you can view the information you are interested in even if the Internet is unavailable will disappear.
Simplified mode. Once activated, web pages and images are adapted to consume less internet traffic and load faster.
Payments via Google Assistant. They don’t work now, but in the future it will be possible to add bank card and payment system details to the assistant for making purchases on the Internet and in brick-and-mortar stores. In the US, Google will launch Google Express, a service with expedited delivery of goods purchased using Google Assistant.
Launch Google Assistant from the home page. Now this feature does not work, but a Google Assisstant icon has been found in the Google application, which can be placed on the home page to quickly launch this service.
Support for entering data into Google Assistant using the keyboard instead of voice.
New settings for flexible adaptation of the application to the user's needs.
A version of the Google application with Google Assistant has not yet appeared on the Google Play Store; you can download the APK file to install it manually from the website
At the beginning of October, Yandex released assistant Alice. At first, we were skeptical about this assistant being able to understand the context of a conversation, since Google already has something similar. However, we were a little mistaken, because Alice turned out to be much more talkative and pleasant to talk to than her counterparts.
Thanks to machine learning and artificial intelligence, Alice feels more like a real person than a real person. She always has an answer to your question. Of course, neural networks are not perfect yet, and the bot needs a long learning curve in order to correctly answer various questions. Therefore, sometimes the bot can give an answer unrelated to the question, but it’s a matter of time. In the future, this problem will be solved by larger and more correct sampling, as well as by optimizing learning algorithms.
But now the result is very pleasing. In particular, we would like to note speech synthesis; the voice engine works perfectly here. One gets the feeling that every speech was recorded manually - there are no breaks between letters, the speech itself sounds very realistic and pleasant.
Of course, there is still work to be done, and sometimes the bot doesn't understand the context. When asked to sing a song, the assistant opens Yandex Music, which we, of course, don’t want, because we want to hear the assistant himself sing. To the question “Yandex or Google?” The assistant answers, and quite standardly. The bot understands the question “Should I take an umbrella?” by displaying a weather card.
Doubt about the presence of AI was introduced by the question “Okay Google,” to which the assistant each time replies with the same phrase, “That was a shame.” Probably, the company combines the capabilities of AI and statically asked answers to questions. It’s difficult to say exactly how training is implemented here, but the work of the AI needs to be limited so that ordinary users cannot teach the bot bad phrases.
To the question “How do you feel about headphones?” The bot responded with the following:
As you can see, he didn’t understand the context, but at the same time, using the AI, he tried to answer on his own, it didn’t turn out very well, but it was better than the answer “This is what I managed to find on the Internet for the query “Why?”.” Did you like Alice?
